Auto vs Manual - Which to Buy?

[Spart]

In Europe we start off in manuals, so congratulations, you're as skilled as a 17 year old European. ?
Welcome to the cub scouts, have a cookie.

I'm from the US and I started out driving nothing but manuals. Manual tractors, in fact. One brake pedal for each rear wheel! A lot to manage at the age of 12, but I figured it out.

The reason the Europeans always get this wrong about American manual drivers is that people from Europe near-universally stop advancing their manual driving skills once they can successfully drive to the market without stalling. Sure, they get good enough to granny shift around at a pedestrian pace. That's not all there is to being skilled with a manual of course. But this level of skill is something almost anyone can learn in an afternoon, and it's not very impressive.

Put your average "17 year old European" on a track and 99% would make fools of themselves. Even if they've somehow learned how to rev-match a downshift (it's astounding how many Europeans are insistent on NOT rev-matching even after being made aware of their bad habit) you'd be hard pressed to find one in a hundred that can rev match smoothly while simultaneously braking. That's an important performance driving skill to master in order to drive at the limit on track without upsetting the car or locking up the driven wheels unintentionally. If you're trail braking and executing a downshift at the same time in a ham-fisted way, you're likely as not to spin a rear drive car.

Small wonder these same people often become convinced that a manual is an impossible handicap around a track, and that an auto is a "better" track experience.

You might say that Americans never learn to do any of this either, and that might be true to a point. But since Americans who drive manuals in the year 2023 by and large are enthusiasts, and Europeans who drive manuals by and large are not, I think you'll find a far larger percentage of American manual drivers have a more complete skillset than their European manual-driving compatriots, who are most likely just trying to get to work.

We have a different relationship with manual transmission cars over here, and we drive them differently. It is what it is. Porsche would almost certainly have gone all-PDK if not for American manual buyers. The manual take rate on the previous-gen GT3 was 70% here and 30% everywhere else. Porsche was shocked by this.

Unfortunately, Toyota does not allow you to order a car to your spec as Porsche does, so we'll never really know how many US buyers wanted manual Supras. Toyota decides how many to build ahead of time and that's that. Judging by the available inventory of manual Supras in the US, they aren't building enough. By how much is anyone's guess.

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[Dannyvandelft]

I'm from the US and I started out driving nothing but manuals. Manual tractors, in fact. One brake pedal for each rear wheel! A lot to manage at the age of 12, but I figured it out.

The reason the Europeans always get this wrong about American manual drivers is that people from Europe near-universally stop advancing their manual driving skills once they can successfully drive to the market without stalling. Sure, they get good enough to granny shift around at a pedestrian pace. That's not all there is to being skilled with a manual of course. But this level of skill is something almost anyone can learn in an afternoon, and it's not very impressive.

Put your average "17 year old European" on a track and 99% would make fools of themselves. Even if they've somehow learned how to rev-match a downshift (it's astounding how many Europeans are insistent on NOT rev-matching even after being made aware of their bad habit) you'd be hard pressed to find one in a hundred that can rev match smoothly while simultaneously braking. That's an important performance driving skill to master in order to drive at the limit on track without upsetting the car or locking up the driven wheels unintentionally. If you're trail braking and executing a downshift at the same time in a ham-fisted way, you're likely as not to spin a rear drive car.

Small wonder these same people often become convinced that a manual is an impossible handicap around a track, and that an auto is a "better" track experience.

You might say that Americans never learn to do any of this either, and that might be true to a point. But since Americans who drive manuals in the year 2023 by and large are enthusiasts, and Europeans who drive manuals by and large are not, I think you'll find a far larger percentage of American manual drivers have a more complete skillset than their European manual-driving compatriots, who are most likely just trying to get to work.

We have a different relationship with manual transmission cars over here, and we drive them differently. It is what it is. Porsche would almost certainly have gone all-PDK if not for American manual buyers. The manual take rate on the previous-gen GT3 was 70% here and 30% everywhere else. Porsche was shocked by this.

Unfortunately, Toyota does not allow you to order a car to your spec as Porsche does, so we'll never really know how many US buyers wanted manual Supras. Toyota decides how many to build ahead of time and that's that. Judging by the available inventory of manual Supras in the US, they aren't building enough. By how much is anyone's guess.

That is the dumbest "Murica" post ever. Like people in Europe don't do track days ? the best tracks in the world are in Europe. Monza, Spa, Silverstone, not to mention the grandaddy of them all, the Nurburgring.
I've lived 22 years in Europe, and 20 years in the U.S. and I can tell you from EXPERIENCE, not hypothesis, that American drivers are BY FAR the worst.

 

[Emspilot]

I'm from the US and I started out driving nothing but manuals. Manual tractors, in fact. One brake pedal for each rear wheel! A lot to manage at the age of 12, but I figured it out.

The reason the Europeans always get this wrong about American manual drivers is that people from Europe near-universally stop advancing their manual driving skills once they can successfully drive to the market without stalling. Sure, they get good enough to granny shift around at a pedestrian pace. That's not all there is to being skilled with a manual of course. But this level of skill is something almost anyone can learn in an afternoon, and it's not very impressive.

Put your average "17 year old European" on a track and 99% would make fools of themselves. Even if they've somehow learned how to rev-match a downshift (it's astounding how many Europeans are insistent on NOT rev-matching even after being made aware of their bad habit) you'd be hard pressed to find one in a hundred that can rev match smoothly while simultaneously braking. That's an important performance driving skill to master in order to drive at the limit on track without upsetting the car or locking up the driven wheels unintentionally. If you're trail braking and executing a downshift at the same time in a ham-fisted way, you're likely as not to spin a rear drive car.

Small wonder these same people often become convinced that a manual is an impossible handicap around a track, and that an auto is a "better" track experience.

You might say that Americans never learn to do any of this either, and that might be true to a point. But since Americans who drive manuals in the year 2023 by and large are enthusiasts, and Europeans who drive manuals by and large are not, I think you'll find a far larger percentage of American manual drivers have a more complete skillset than their European manual-driving compatriots, who are most likely just trying to get to work.

We have a different relationship with manual transmission cars over here, and we drive them differently. It is what it is. Porsche would almost certainly have gone all-PDK if not for American manual buyers. The manual take rate on the previous-gen GT3 was 70% here and 30% everywhere else. Porsche was shocked by this.

Unfortunately, Toyota does not allow you to order a car to your spec as Porsche does, so we'll never really know how many US buyers wanted manual Supras. Toyota decides how many to build ahead of time and that's that. Judging by the available inventory of manual Supras in the US, they aren't building enough. By how much is anyone's guess.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

 

[Spart]

That is the dumbest "Murica" post ever. Like people in Europe don't do track days ? the best tracks in the world are in Europe. Monza, Spa, Silverstone, not to mention the grandaddy of them all, the Nurburgring.
I've lived 22 years in Europe, and 20 years in the U.S. and I can tell you from EXPERIENCE, not hypothesis, that American drivers are BY FAR the worst.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

This is not hard to figure out.

Do a search for new vehicles with manuals in Europe and what do you see? Vans, economy cars, wagon/estate cars. Just boring, run of the mill stuff. And a LOT of it.

These people are not heel-toeing their way around Spa, they're driving to work.

Do the same thing in the US. It's almost all enthusiast vehicles, often of the kind bought as a second vehicle.

The demographic and target market is VASTLY different. There is no denying this.

If one of your takeaways from this is not that the average person who buys a new manual car in Europe has very little in common with the average person buying a new manual car in the US, then you're fooling yourself.

It naturally follows that the type of driving skill those drivers pursue has stark differences as well.

Europe is full of manual-driving people who have little to no performance driving skills.

The US is full of automatic-driving people who have little to no performance driving skills.

A vanishingly small minority of people in each region pursues advance driving skills. The sales numbers of the related necessary equipment (a manual performance vehicle) proves the point that Americans opt to do so with manual equipped vehicles more often than Europeans do.

 

[Dannyvandelft]

This is not hard to figure out.

Do a search for new vehicles with manuals in Europe and what do you see? Vans, economy cars, wagon/estate cars. Just boring, run of the mill stuff. And a LOT of it.

These people are not heel-toeing their way around Spa, they're driving to work.

Do the same thing in the US. It's almost all enthusiast vehicles, often of the kind bought as a second vehicle.

The demographic and target market is VASTLY different. There is no denying this.

If one of your takeaways from this is not that the average person who buys a new manual car in Europe has very little in common with the average person buying a new manual car in the US, then you're fooling yourself.

It naturally follows that the type of driving skill those drivers pursue has stark differences as well.

Europe is full of manual-driving people who have little to no performance driving skills.

The US is full of automatic-driving people who have little to no performance driving skills.

A vanishingly small minority of people in each region pursues advance driving skills. The sales numbers of the related necessary equipment (a manual performance vehicle) proves the point that Americans opt to do so with manual equipped vehicles more often than Europeans do.

You're an idiot. Europeans buy performance vehicles with performance parts, i.e. PDK. Americans buy manuals to boast that they drive a manual, even though it makes their performance car slower. We buy performance cars for a purpose, performance. That's why you see Ferrari, McLaren, Lamborghini, Porsche RS cars, all with performance paddle shifters.

We don't need manuals in our performance cars, because it's nothing special. It's normal. Whereas here in the U.S. "oooooooh look how cool I am, I drive a stick".

 

[Spart]

You're an idiot. Europeans buy performance vehicles with performance parts, i.e. PDK. Americans buy manuals to boast that they drive a manual, even though it makes their performance car slower. We buy performance cars for a purpose, performance. That's why you see Ferrari, McLaren, Lamborghini, Porsche RS cars, all with performance paddle shifters.

We don't need manuals in our performance cars, because it's nothing special. It's normal. Whereas here in the U.S. "oooooooh look how cool I am, I drive a stick".

You think this response is clever, but you're only proving my point.

 

[Dannyvandelft]

You think this response is clever, but you're only proving my point.

No, I proved that your reasoning is wrong. You claim it's because of lack of skill, and it isn't. It's too slow. A manual adds nothing for us, because we are so used to it. To you it's "special" because it's hard for you. You think it's an accomplishment.

It's not.

 

[Spart]

No, I proved that your reasoning is wrong. You claim it's because of lack of skill, and it isn't. It's too slow. A manual adds nothing for us, because we are so used to it. To you it's "special" because it's hard for you. You think it's an accomplishment.

It's not.

It's not hard, it never really was. It's engaging and rewarding.

You're awfully focused on the "slow" aspect. Which is the worst argument. A Miata is a blast to drive on a track, and it's woefully slow no matter what transmission you equip it with. What does one get out of track driving that makes the Miata worthwhile then?

Well, you don't see Miatas lighting the world on fire in WEC. So they can't be very good race cars.

But track driving ≠ professional racing. And nobody in this thread cross shopping an automatic and manual Supra is doing so with the intent to race it professionally.

So we're at the HPDE (track day) level here. Where you get a huge variety of cars on track that aren't equivalent to one another in performance, and typically rules about passing that involve either point-bys or only passing on certain zones/straights. It's not a race, nobody is winning or losing. Though I will admit, it's always satisfying getting a point-by from a McLaren driver who's in over their head.

What are HPDE enthusiasts trying to achieve then? To be better than they were the day before.

I can look at my minor errors and strive to eliminate them. I guess you can just give your PDK a pep-talk then?

You can't improve something you're not doing. Some people want to buy skill and that's the actual irony in your argument, you claim you have the skills and needn't use them, whereas we claim to have the skills and bring the receipts.

 

[kaj]

It's not hard, it never really was. It's engaging and rewarding.

You're awfully focused on the "slow" aspect. Which is the worst argument. A Miata is a blast to drive on a track, and it's woefully slow no matter what transmission you equip it with. What does one get out of track driving that makes the Miata worthwhile then?

Well, you don't see Miatas lighting the world on fire in WEC. So they can't be very good race cars.

But track driving ≠ professional racing. And nobody in this thread cross shopping an automatic and manual Supra is doing so with the intent to race it professionally.

So we're at the HPDE (track day) level here. Where you get a huge variety of cars on track that aren't equivalent to one another in performance, and typically rules about passing that involve either point-bys or only passing on certain zones/straights. It's not a race, nobody is winning or losing. Though I will admit, it's always satisfying getting a point-by from a McLaren driver who's in over their head.

What are HPDE enthusiasts trying to achieve then? To be better than they were the day before.

I can look at my minor errors and strive to eliminate them. I guess you can just give your PDK a pep-talk then?

You can't improve something you're not doing. Some people want to buy skill and that's the actual irony in your argument, you claim you have the skills and needn't use them, whereas we claim to have the skills and bring the receipts.

Some of us do more than HPDE.
PS. It's good to know that I'm a more awesome driver when I'm in my manual car than my automatic.

 

[Dannyvandelft]

It's not hard, it never really was. It's engaging and rewarding.

You're awfully focused on the "slow" aspect. Which is the worst argument. A Miata is a blast to drive on a track, and it's woefully slow no matter what transmission you equip it with. What does one get out of track driving that makes the Miata worthwhile then?

Well, you don't see Miatas lighting the world on fire in WEC. So they can't be very good race cars.

But track driving ≠ professional racing. And nobody in this thread cross shopping an automatic and manual Supra is doing so with the intent to race it professionally.

So we're at the HPDE (track day) level here. Where you get a huge variety of cars on track that aren't equivalent to one another in performance, and typically rules about passing that involve either point-bys or only passing on certain zones/straights. It's not a race, nobody is winning or losing. Though I will admit, it's always satisfying getting a point-by from a McLaren driver who's in over their head.

What are HPDE enthusiasts trying to achieve then? To be better than they were the day before.

I can look at my minor errors and strive to eliminate them. I guess you can just give your PDK a pep-talk then?

You can't improve something you're not doing. Some people want to buy skill and that's the actual irony in your argument, you claim you have the skills and needn't use them, whereas we claim to have the skills and bring the receipts.

??? yeah those receipts, let's see them. I HPDE my auto Supra, and I shift it manually with the paddles, because it's just better than a stick. I pick the shift points, the same as with a stick. Just with more performance. "You're not doing it" except that I am.

How come the best drivers in the world are all European? When was the last time an American did anything worthwhile in Formula One?

Those receipts are toilet paper.

 

[kaj]

.
How come the best drivers in the world are all European? When was the last time an American did anything worthwhile in Formula One?

Those receipts are toilet paper.

Probably because nobody in the US starts driving when they are, like 3yrs old. ?

 

[Dannyvandelft]

Probably because nobody in the US starts driving when they are, like 3yrs old. ?

? yeah true. There's 12 year olds rallying MANUALS on ice and snow in Scandinavia, but Europeans don't know how to REALLY drive stick ????? that guy is rolling some crazy blunts with those race receipts.

 

[lucky phil]

I'm from the US and I started out driving nothing but manuals. Manual tractors, in fact. One brake pedal for each rear wheel! A lot to manage at the age of 12, but I figured it out.

The reason the Europeans always get this wrong about American manual drivers is that people from Europe near-universally stop advancing their manual driving skills once they can successfully drive to the market without stalling. Sure, they get good enough to granny shift around at a pedestrian pace. That's not all there is to being skilled with a manual of course. But this level of skill is something almost anyone can learn in an afternoon, and it's not very impressive.

Put your average "17 year old European" on a track and 99% would make fools of themselves. Even if they've somehow learned how to rev-match a downshift (it's astounding how many Europeans are insistent on NOT rev-matching even after being made aware of their bad habit) you'd be hard pressed to find one in a hundred that can rev match smoothly while simultaneously braking. That's an important performance driving skill to master in order to drive at the limit on track without upsetting the car or locking up the driven wheels unintentionally. If you're trail braking and executing a downshift at the same time in a ham-fisted way, you're likely as not to spin a rear drive car.

Small wonder these same people often become convinced that a manual is an impossible handicap around a track, and that an auto is a "better" track experience.

You might say that Americans never learn to do any of this either, and that might be true to a point. But since Americans who drive manuals in the year 2023 by and large are enthusiasts, and Europeans who drive manuals by and large are not, I think you'll find a far larger percentage of American manual drivers have a more complete skillset than their European manual-driving compatriots, who are most likely just trying to get to work.

We have a different relationship with manual transmission cars over here, and we drive them differently. It is what it is. Porsche would almost certainly have gone all-PDK if not for American manual buyers. The manual take rate on the previous-gen GT3 was 70% here and 30% everywhere else. Porsche was shocked by this.

Unfortunately, Toyota does not allow you to order a car to your spec as Porsche does, so we'll never really know how many US buyers wanted manual Supras. Toyota decides how many to build ahead of time and that's that. Judging by the available inventory of manual Supras in the US, they aren't building enough. By how much is anyone's guess.

You referred to me as a troll recently in another thread and I let it slide. I'm glad I did after reading this.

Phil

 

[FLtrackdays]

Anyone who bought a Supra is obviously is more intelligent than most of the population, regardless of transmission ?

 

[Drnick]

Oh boy? now u opened a can of worms ?
Europeans against Americans ! And the manual/automatic discussion continues!
And goes worldwide ?

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